1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to the interfacing of peripheral computer equipment to a bus of a host computer.
2. Related Art and Other Considerations
Computer systems typically have a bus which forms e.g. a connection between the computer's processor and a peripheral device, such as a storage type. One type of bus is configured to operate under either an ATA (AT-attachment) or ATAPI (ATA Packet Interface) protocol, and is accordingly known as an IDE (Integrated Device/Drive Electronics) or ATA/ATAPI peripheral bus. The operation of ATA/ATAPI peripheral bus is understood with resort to such documents as ANSI X3T9 document "AT Attachment Interface with Extensions (ATA-2)" defining the peripheral bus interface!, and the Small Form Factor Committee document "ATA Packet Interface for CD-ROMs SFF-8020i" defining the ATAPI device protocol!.
Presently, an IDE bus can handle up to two ATA/ATAPI devices (e.g., two storage devices). Of the two ATA/ATAPI devices, one device must be considered a "master"; the other must be considered a "slave".
Connecting a device to an active IDE bus can corrupt data flow on the bus and crash the entire computer system. What is needed is a safe way to connect a device to an active IDE bus. Other problems exist when the IDE bus expects to have a device connected to it, but does not. In some instances it would be advantageous to emulate connection of a device to an IDE bus when no such device is connected.